Market Report: Goods-to-Person Ecommerce Fulfilment Robotics 2021

Executive Summary

Outlook for 2021 very positive driven by ecommerce growth; ipo @ $2.7bn; overall increased confidence; grenzebach sponsored g2p report

Lockdown caused most g2p automation projects to be postponed or frozen
Critical and projects already in motion were either postponed or continued with difficult access to sites
All key trade shows postponed to 2022

Signs that project activity restarted around summer 2020
Increased project motion in 3q 4q20, improved market visibility and acceptance of situation main drivers
Strong incoming order activity in 2021
Sector employment (profiled companies) growth 11.4% in the year to february 2021, despite the pandemic
Longer term trend consensus split, some volatility expected in the short term, positive outlook

Partnering continued, primary driver was access to projects/sales channels
Fomo indicated as a driver for system integrators
New in 2020 was size of partners, i.e. Top system integrators
Notable new developments included kion signing a partnership with quicktron in 2h20 (to be marketed via dematic), kardex entered a global distribution partnership with autostore in 1h21

The mfc grew in importance, esp. With grocers, but fmcg/cpg vendors also experimenting
Short term g2p sector growth was viewed as continuation of a longer trend in material handling equipment (mhe) sector
Increased deployments of hybrid solutions that utilized recent entrants with incumbent or other new systems
More 3pl innovation teams tracking market developments with dedicated warehouse space for pocs
Automation increasingly used to market 3pls
Startup activity and funding remained strong
Poc’s were in many cases replaced by larger production installations
Picking robots were increasingly deployed in production environments, but in limited applications
Increased or accelerated use of visual simulation tools

Berkshire grey announced an ipo (via a spac), in feb 2021, est. Valuation $2.7bn (77x 2020 revenue)
Locus raised $150m in feb 2021 (total raised c.$250m)
Exotec raised $90m in sep 2020 (total c. $110m)
Geek+ announced an additional $50m raise in mid 2021, (total c.$435m)
Nimble raised $50m in mar 2021 (total c.$50m)
Magazino raised $24.5m (total c. $50m) from investors including jungheinrich

Positive early indications in 2021, potentially driven by changed mindset re. Automation
Further pandemic disruptions to be expected, in isolated countries or regions
Shipping issues may cause short term disruption
Increased investments in the g2p sector expected across all segments
Further spac ipos in the sector to be expected in 2021 and 2022 as investors seek exits
Grocers have few options and mfcs will continue to grow in importance, but profitability issues remain
The lack of trade shows had promoted webinars to the top of sales & marketing activities, however, webinar fatigue was an issue